The leading Democrats in the House Intelligence Committee will finally focus on the REAL risk to US security and its national interest.

Kushner's overseas contacts raise concerns as foreign officials seek leverage (_link) "Kushner had contacts with foreign officials that he did not coordinate through the National Security Council or officially report"

Last February, the Washington Postreported that at least four countries had discussed the president's son-in-law as a possible target of manipulation given his financial straits - the paper named the United Arab Emirates, China, Israel and Mexico.

More below the fold ...

What about the publicized "back-channel" with a Russian delegate on the Seychelles?

In January 2017 Erik Prince attended a meeting in the Seychelles with the United Arab Emirate's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund Kirill Dmitriev, and George Nader, a former consultant for Erik Prince's company Blackwater.

In return for pushing anti-Qatar policies at the highest levels of America's government, Broidy and Nader expected huge consulting contracts from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, according to an Associated Press investigation based on interviews with more than two dozen people and hundreds of pages of leaked emails between the two men. The emails reviewed by the AP included work summaries and contracting documents and proposals.

The AP has previously reported that Broidy and Nader sought to get an anti-Qatar bill through Congress while obscuring the source of the money behind their influence campaign. A new cache of emails obtained by the AP reveals an ambitious, secretive lobbying effort to isolate Qatar and undermine the Pentagon's longstanding relationship with the Gulf country.

A lawyer for Broidy, Chris Clark, contended the AP's reporting "is based on fraudulent and fabricated documents obtained from entities with a known agenda to harm Mr. Broidy."

A cooperating witness in the special counsel investigation worked for more than a year to turn a top Trump fund-raiser into an instrument of influence at the White House for the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, according to interviews and previously undisclosed documents.

Hundreds of pages of correspondence between the two men reveal an active effort to cultivate President Trump on behalf of the two oil-rich Arab monarchies, both close American allies.

High on the agenda of the two men -- George Nader, a political adviser to the de facto ruler of the U.A.E., and Elliott Broidy, the deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee -- was pushing the White House to remove Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, backing confrontational approaches to Iran and Qatar and repeatedly pressing the president to meet privately outside the White House with the leader of the U.A.E.

Mr. Nader's cultivation of Mr. Broidy, laid out in documents provided to The New York Times, provides a case study in the way two Persian Gulf monarchies have sought to gain influence inside the Trump White House. Mr. Nader has been granted immunity in a deal for his cooperation with the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.

[...]

Mr. Nader, 58, a United States citizen born in Lebanon, previously ran a Washington-based journal called Middle East Insight, acted as an informal emissary to Syria under the Clinton administration, and, according to a short biography in the emails, later worked for Vice President Dick Cheney.

Early in the Trump administration, the two men also noted with approval a successful effort to block a top Pentagon position for Anne Patterson, a former ambassador to Cairo whom the Emiratis and Saudis have long criticized as too sympathetic to the deposed Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood during his one year in office.

In one message to Mr. Nader in March 2017, Mr. Broidy referred to Secure America Now, an advocacy organization that he suggested had campaigned against Ms. Patterson, as "one of the groups I am working with."

The foundation [Hudson Institute] said in a statement that it was approached by Mr. Broidy in 2017 seeking to fund a conference on Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood. "As is our funding policy, we asked if his funding was connected to any foreign governments or if he had business contracts in the Gulf. He assured us that he did not," the statement said.

Documents show Mr. Nader's payment was made by an Emirati-based company he controlled, GS Investments, to an obscure firm based in Vancouver, British Columbia, controlled by Mr. Broidy, Xiemen Investments Ltd.

Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State. He will do a fantastic job! Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service! Gina Haspel will become the new Director of the CIA, and the first woman so chosen. Congratulations to all!

Discovery appears to have helped Jewish state grow closer to Arab governments and other Mediterranean countries that share its concern over what they perceive as the rising power of Iran and Turkey in the region.

A decade after discovering natural gas fields off its Mediterranean coast, Israel is starting to feel the geopolitical boost.

Its newfound riches have fostered economic bonds with its neighbors, tightening relations with Arab allies, and built new bridges in a historically hostile region -- even without significant progress being made toward peace with the Palestinians.

Last week's inclusion of Israel into the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum in Cairo -- a consortium aiming to cut infrastructure costs and lower prices -- marked the first time Arab countries accepted Israel into such a regional alliance, sparking excitement in the country that its long-held hope of finally also making "economic peace" with Egypt and Jordan was fast approaching.

"I think this is the most significant economic cooperation between Egypt and Israel since the signing of the peace treaty 40 years ago," says Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz during his visit. "The discovery of significant gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean has also political value because it brings all of us ... together to cooperate with each other."

The first batches will come from the operational Tamar field and later from the far larger Leviathan field, set to go online later this year. Israel already delivers gas to the Palestinians and to Jordan, with whom Israel's Delek Drilling and its US partner, Noble Energy, signed their first export agreement in 2016 -- a $10 billion, 15-year deal to provide 45 billion cubic meters of gas.

Roger Stone, a key ally of Donald Trump, has been arrested on charges of obstruction, witness tampering and making false statements, the office of the special counsel, Robert Mueller, has announced.

The indictment alleges that Stone made multiple attempts to contact WikiLeaks through an intermediary about documents stolen from the Democratic national committee and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, and passed on information to Trump's election campaign team about the documents.

Stone was arrested in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Friday after an indictment was issued by a federal grand jury in Washington DC the day before, said a spokesman for Mueller, who is investigating Russia's interference in the 2016 US election and any ties to the Trump campaign.

Foreign Ministry warns `hypocritical and anti-Semitic' legislation would have serious repercussions for Israel-Ireland ties if passed.

The Foreign Ministry reprimanded Ireland's envoy to Israel following the advancement of an Irish bill criminalizing Israeli products from areas captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

The bill would apply to Israeli goods from East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Jordan and Syria in the Six Day War.

The measure, introduced by the conservative Fianna Fáil - The Republican Party would make illegal "the import and sales of goods, services and natural resources originating in illegal settlements in occupied territories." Sinn Fein, a left-wing party, supported the bill.

The Dail, Ireland's lower house, passed the measure by a vote of 78-45 with three abstentions. The bill must still pass three more stages before becoming law, according to reports.

[...]

Fianna Fáil foreign affairs spokesman Niall Collins told the Irish Independent ahead of the vote that his party has become "increasingly concerned about the actions of Israel and its continued and blatant disregard for international law."

At the meeting it was made clear to the ambassador that the hypocritical and antisemitic legislation will have severe ramifications on Israel-#Ireland relations and Ireland's standing in the region should the legislation be promoted.

Qatar on Friday said it will pay $20 million in humanitarian aid to boost the ailing economy of Gaza, a day after the coastal strip's Palestinian rulers stopped the oil-rich Gulf state from paying money directly to impoverished government workers there.

The move was widely seen as a compromise between Qatar, which appears intent on increasing its regional influence, and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which controls Gaza.

Qatar's point-man for Gaza relief efforts, Mohammed Al-Emadi, said in Gaza: "It was agreed to allocate the Qatari financial grant to pay for humanitarian projects with full cooperation and coordination with the United Nations."

On the same day Obama was apologetic to Israeli air strikes on Gaza with death toll rising above 300 victims ...

Vice President Biden welcomed Qatari Minister of State for Defense Affairs Hamad Bin Ali Al-Attiyah at the White House today. The Vice President and Minister of State discussed regional issues, including Syria, Iraq, Libya, and the Gaza crisis. The Vice President congratulated Qatar on the signing of Letters of Offer and Acceptance for Apache Helicopters and Patriot and Javelin defense systems and reaffirmed the strong strategic relationship between Qatar and the United States.

The hypocrisy by leaders in the UK, France, US and Israel to cooperate with Saudi Arabia, Emirates and Qatar for military operations in proxy wars and selling a large weapons arsenal. The terror blow-back has caused extensive deaths, damage and hardship in the Western European nations.

The European Commission has added Saudi Arabia to an EU draft list of countries that pose a threat to the bloc because of lax controls against terrorism financing and money laundering, two sources told Reuters.

The EU's list currently consists of 16 countries, including Iran, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen and North Korea, and is mostly based on criteria used by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global body formed by developed nations.

The draft list has been updated to address new criteria developed by the EU Commission since 2017. Saudi Arabia is one of the countries added to the updated list that is still confidential, one EU source and one Saudi source told Reuters.

Under the new EU methodology, jurisdictions may also be blacklisted if they do not provide sufficient information on ownership of companies or if their rules on reporting suspicious transactions or monitoring financial customers are considered too lax.

Saudi Arabia missed out on gaining full FATF membership in September after it was determined to fall short in combatting both money laundering and terror financing, Reuters said.

Amid a partial shutdown, DHS gives admins 10 business days to lock down their DNS.

The Department of Homeland Security has issued an emergency directive ordering administrators of most federal agencies to protect their Internet domains against a rash of attacks that have hit executive branch websites and email servers in recent weeks.

"CISA is aware of multiple executive branch agency domains that were impacted by the tampering campaign and has notified the agencies that maintain them," CISA Director Christopher C. Krebs wrote in Wednesday's emergency directive.

The emergency directive, which carries more urgency than DHS's more-common Binding Operational Directives, requires agencies to add multi-factor authentication to their DNS accounts, change account passwords, audit their DNS records, and monitor certificate logs, according to the order. Agencies have 10 business days to implement those instructions.

Agencies can manage their DNS records in-house, outsource the work to a commercial provider, or have a mix of both. The directive makes clear that agencies will ultimately be held accountable for their domain-name security policies, regardless of where they maintain their DNS accounts.

The DHS order follows research published earlier this month by cybersecurity company FireEye, showing how hackers were manipulating DNS records to divert a target's traffic through malicious servers. The campaign was aimed at organizations in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and North America, including government and commercial organizations. FireEye researchers asserted with "moderate confidence" that people based in Iran carried out that DNS hijacking, and that the "activity aligns with Iranian government interests."

There is also mention in The Netherlands of an advanced phishing technique ...

At Labor's National Conference I spoke on Murdoch as a cancer on democracy. In response, there's been one rolling bucket of bile from the Murdoch media. & Murdoch editors refused to print any reply. My comments in today's Fairfax (_link)pic.twitter.com/nrR9FdSUaA

I would never lower myself to use the term "cancer" as it degrades the content of Rudd's article and argument. Poor choice of words. My criticism about Murdoch and his enterprises over the years has been relentless.

The UAE hires 'ex-CIA', 'former NSA' and 'ex-soldiers' to spy on dissidents, friends and enemies. It uses tools produced by the NGO Group [Pegasus] which is run by 'alumni of Israel's famous Unit 8200 signals intelligence arm'. When Canadian researchers [Citizens Lab] dig too deep into NGO Group's business they get visits by 'retired Israeli security official' from a company founded by 'former Israeli military officers' who recruit many 'former Mossad agents' [Black Cube].

There is also the 'former MI6 agent' Christopher Steele who created the Dirty Dossier about Donald Trump for the Clinton campaign. Parts of the dossier were likely written by the 'former MI6/GRU double agent' Sergei Skripal who the Brits novichoked and vanished in Salisbury. The international media reaction to that incident was of special interest to the secret military intelligence shop Integrity Initiative which is run by Nigel Donnelly, a 'former British military intelligence official'. The Initiative is financed by the British government.

When I read pieces like those linked above I always presume that the 'former' CIA/NSA/FBI/MI6/8200/Mossad/military folks are not 'former' at all, but active agents on a mission for their original service. Some stories only make sense when one reads them under that premise.

Following links from MoA article about the alliance of intelligence agencies working for one or more government agencies in the Middle East. Of course the autocratic, dictatorial regimes with immense wealth of the Gulf States look with envy towards Israel and the United States where the "democratic" leaders get away with war crimes with impunity. The age old mantra, if you can't beat them, join them!